Spanish Empire (and Ming Dynasty)

The Spanish empire | Border Line; An illuminating defence of the way Spain expanded its reach across the Americas. Economist, July 12, 2014www.economist.com/news/books-and ... oss-americas-border
(book review on Hugh Thomas, World Without End; The global empire of Philip II. Allen Lane, 2014)

Note:
(a) “IN THE 1580s King Philip II of Castile ruled over a huge empire. Iberia, much of Italy, the Low Countries, the Americas from California and Florida to Buenos Aires, the Caribbean and the Philippines were all under his suzerainty.”
(i) Philip II of Spain
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_II_of_Spain
(1527-1598; King of Spain 1556-1598, King of Portugal 1581-1598), King of Naples and Sicily as well as Duke of Milan (1554-1598); During his marriage to Queen Mary I (1554–58), he was also King of England and Ireland; lord of the Seventeen Provinces of the Netherlands (1555-1598); Known in Spanish as "Philip the Prudent;” his namesake Philippine Islands; being also a German archduke from the House of Habsburg)

Quote: “During his reign, Spain reached the height of its influence and power. The expression ‘The empire on which the sun never sets’ was coined during Philip's time to reflect the extent of his possessions.
(ii) Spanish Empire
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_Empire
(iii) Mary I of Englanden.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_I_of_England(1516-1558; Queen of England and Ireland 1553-1558; daughter of Henry VIII; Catholic; Bloody Mary; married Philip of Spain, becoming queen consort of Habsburg Spain on his accession in 1556; succeeded by 1558 by her younger [protestant] half-sister, Elizabeth I)
(iii) Philippines
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philippines
(section 1 Etymology; section 2.3 Spanish colonization)

(b) “Spanish officials even went as far as to consider the conquest of China; one thought it could be taken by fewer than 60 ‘good Spanish soldiers.’ * * * The book’s discussion of the plans for the conquest of China (realistic officials thought it would require 12,000 troops rather than just 60) will be new for many readers.”
(i) Ming dynasty (1368–1644)
(ii) Wanli Emperor
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wanli_Emperor
(1563-1620; reign 1572-1620, Era name 年號: 萬曆 (1573-1620); Temple name 廟號: 明神宗)

(c) “Spain conquered and settled vast territories in the 16th century with remarkable speed. * * *By the 1580s, for example, Lima boasted a university, a printing press, fashionable shops, ‘fine private houses with heavy studded doors beneath elaborate coats of arms’ (some of which survive) and several convents, which were fortresses of culture and feminism. * * *Lord Thomas notes that Peru was richer and more important than Mexico (or New Spain as it was then known)”
(i) Peru
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peru
(Peruvian territory was home "to the Inca Empire, the largest state in Pre-Columbian America. The Spanish Empire conquered the region in the 16th century and established a Viceroyalty with its capital in Lima, which included most of its South American colonies”/ section 1 Etymology)
(ii) Inca Empire
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inca_Empire
(1438-1533; Capital: Cusco [in Peru])

(d) “The author is particularly good, too, on Lope de Aguirre, the psychopathic rebel who journeyed down the Amazon, ‘a man of pure evil with superior talents.’”

Lope de Aguirre
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lope_de_Aguirre
(section 2.1 Search for El Dorado)
(e) “He [author = Lord Thomas] omits all reference to the pervasive influence of the Jesuits in Brazil, ruled by King Philip after he assumed the Portuguese crown in 1580.”

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_II_of_Spain
(section 6 King of Portugal)
(f) “Several of the epigraphs that introduce chapters are irrelevant or misplaced.“

epigraph (n): "a quotation set at the beginning of a literary work or one of its divisions to suggest its theme"www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/epigraph
(g) “In these respects, Spain’s empire in the Americas bears favourable comparison with that of Britain (as Sir John Elliott, another eminent British historian of Spain, argued recently in his masterful comparative study, ‘Empires of the Atlantic World’).”